Last Monday, November 2 began the presale of tickets for U2's concert in September 3 at the Olympic Stadium. Following the example of appearances of Madonna and Depeche Mode (which eventually was cancelled), where the presale started months ago, tickets on sale of the U2 concert started exactly 11 months before it!
It sure is a long time and of course there are obvious reasons why the band and Live Nation chose to start so early the presale. You see the interest in the banks of these funds will provide additional income. But this policy is applied across the world even though it seems strange, even though some of you are wondering if you can plan what you will do a year later.
U2's tour for 2010 has already been announced and most concerts have been sold-out. In Denmark, Finland, Belgium and Portugal they will appear for 2 consecutive days, which are already sold-out! As written in the site of the Didi Music: " Tickets of Horsens in Denmark sold so quickly that a second show (16 August) was added, which was immediately sold out. The Austrian appearance of the group at Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna was sold out Saturday while the show in Helsinki, Finland was another sold out, on Monday morning. "
And we? We've bought all the RED-Zone tickets and the first day some 32.000 friends of U2 took their tickets. There are still tickets at the gates 13A, 11B (Class 1 - 165 euros), 13B, 12 (Category 2 - 100 euros), 1, 2, 16 (Category 3 - 65 Euro) and 25 (VIP - 330 Euro) and the Arena of course (65 euros). More information about the tickets read here .
According to the capacity of the stadium and the Arena, there will be reasonably available approximately 90 to 100,000 tickets. Thus, while in other countries the tickets are gone in one day and while we have done the same in nearly one day for Madonna's concert, for U2 we've covered only 1/3 of the tickets.
Presale continues of course and hopefully the numbers have gone up, but why on earth was there not a sold-out? What's wrong? The high prices? (The cheaper tickets (33.5 Euro) are sold-out)? The fact that the presale is so early? Or do we not like U2?
However you see it, U2 is one of the few big bands that's active and indeed continues to generate significant albums, like this year's ("No Line on the Horizon"). Many times I have heard in discussions quotes like: "Well, if U2 come here the tickets will be gone in a few hours" or "I've alwasys wanted to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers but if they come I do not know what stadium will hold the people that will want to see them."
Do we really want such concerts to be made?
Let's be honest, every band and every organizer sees the numbers of tickets and secondly the public response on the day of the concert. The same thing happens with the smaller names or "big" abroad, but of questionable magnitude in our country.
How can we expect Arctic Monkeys or Arcade Fire to come in Greece, two of the biggest bands of the Zeros? Would we support these concerts? Maybe we're peculiar audience. Maybe not. Maybe our culture is not so close to such music. Whatever we do, the Nordic and Central European countries are closer to British and American music.
You think that it concerns me personally if there will be a sold-out concert of U2 or whether they'll get a lot of money? It will happen whatever we do. The point is to have more like it, and that mostly concerns me, because it's well enough to travel abroad, but we can't constantly "emigrate" to see our favorite groups.
It sure is a long time and of course there are obvious reasons why the band and Live Nation chose to start so early the presale. You see the interest in the banks of these funds will provide additional income. But this policy is applied across the world even though it seems strange, even though some of you are wondering if you can plan what you will do a year later.
U2's tour for 2010 has already been announced and most concerts have been sold-out. In Denmark, Finland, Belgium and Portugal they will appear for 2 consecutive days, which are already sold-out! As written in the site of the Didi Music: " Tickets of Horsens in Denmark sold so quickly that a second show (16 August) was added, which was immediately sold out. The Austrian appearance of the group at Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna was sold out Saturday while the show in Helsinki, Finland was another sold out, on Monday morning. "
And we? We've bought all the RED-Zone tickets and the first day some 32.000 friends of U2 took their tickets. There are still tickets at the gates 13A, 11B (Class 1 - 165 euros), 13B, 12 (Category 2 - 100 euros), 1, 2, 16 (Category 3 - 65 Euro) and 25 (VIP - 330 Euro) and the Arena of course (65 euros). More information about the tickets read here . According to the capacity of the stadium and the Arena, there will be reasonably available approximately 90 to 100,000 tickets. Thus, while in other countries the tickets are gone in one day and while we have done the same in nearly one day for Madonna's concert, for U2 we've covered only 1/3 of the tickets.
Presale continues of course and hopefully the numbers have gone up, but why on earth was there not a sold-out? What's wrong? The high prices? (The cheaper tickets (33.5 Euro) are sold-out)? The fact that the presale is so early? Or do we not like U2?
However you see it, U2 is one of the few big bands that's active and indeed continues to generate significant albums, like this year's ("No Line on the Horizon"). Many times I have heard in discussions quotes like: "Well, if U2 come here the tickets will be gone in a few hours" or "I've alwasys wanted to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers but if they come I do not know what stadium will hold the people that will want to see them."
Do we really want such concerts to be made?
Let's be honest, every band and every organizer sees the numbers of tickets and secondly the public response on the day of the concert. The same thing happens with the smaller names or "big" abroad, but of questionable magnitude in our country.
How can we expect Arctic Monkeys or Arcade Fire to come in Greece, two of the biggest bands of the Zeros? Would we support these concerts? Maybe we're peculiar audience. Maybe not. Maybe our culture is not so close to such music. Whatever we do, the Nordic and Central European countries are closer to British and American music.
You think that it concerns me personally if there will be a sold-out concert of U2 or whether they'll get a lot of money? It will happen whatever we do. The point is to have more like it, and that mostly concerns me, because it's well enough to travel abroad, but we can't constantly "emigrate" to see our favorite groups.
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